Forensics: What Bugs, Burns, Prints, DNA, and More Tell Us About Crime

The dead talk - to the right listener. They can tell us all about themselves: where they came from, how they lived, how they died, and, of course, who killed them. Forensic scientists can unlock the mysteries of the past and help serve justice using the messages left by a corpse, a crime scene, or the faintest of human traces.

Louder Than Words: The New Science of How the Mind Makes Meaning

Whether it’s brusque, convincing, fraught with emotion, or dripping with innuendo, language is fundamentally a tool for conveying meaning - a uniquely human magic trick in which you vibrate your vocal cords to make your innermost thoughts pop up in someone else’s mind. You can use it to talk about all sorts of things - from your new labradoodle puppy to the expansive gardens at Versailles, from Roger Federer’s backhand to things that don’t exist at all, like flying pigs.

The Triumph of Seeds: How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses & Pips Conquered the Plant Kingdom and Shaped Human History

We live in a world of seeds. From our morning toast to the cotton in our clothes, they are quite literally the stuff and staff of life, supporting diets, economies, and civilizations around the globe. Just as the search for nutmeg and the humble peppercorn drove the Age of Discovery, so did coffee beans help fuel the Enlightenment and cottonseed help spark the Industrial Revolution. And from the fall of Rome to the Arab Spring, the fate of nations continues to hinge on the seeds of a Middle Eastern grass known as wheat.

Hurry Up and Meditate

In his thought-provoking and entertaining book, David Michie explains the nuts and bolts of meditation. As a busy professional, as well as long-term meditator, he also gives a first-hand account of how to integrate this transformational practice into everyday life. Combining leading edge science with timeless wisdom, Hurry Up and Meditate provides all the motivation and tools you need to achieve greater balance, better health and a more panoramic perspective on life.

The Lost Art of Listening, Second Edition: How Learning to Listen Can Improve Relationships

One person talks; the other listens. It's so basic that we take it for granted. Unfortunately, most of us think of ourselves as better listeners than we actually are. Why do we so often fail to connect when speaking with family members, romantic partners, colleagues, or friends? How do emotional reactions get in the way of real communication? This thoughtful, witty, and empathic book has already helped over 100,000 people break through conflicts and transform their personal and professional relationships.

When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales from Neurosurgery

With poignant insight and humor, Frank Vertosick, Jr., MD, describes some of the greatest challenges of his career, including a six-week-old infant with a tumor in her brain, a young man struck down in his prime by paraplegia, and a minister with a .22-caliber bullet lodged in his skull. Told through intimate portraits of Vertosick's patients and unsparing-yet-fascinatingly detailed descriptions of surgical procedures, When the Air Hits Your Brain illuminates both the mysteries of the mind and the realities of the operating room.

The Hoarder in You: How to Live a Happier, Healthier, Uncluttered Life

The Hoarder in You provides practical advice for decluttering and organizing, including how to tame the emotional pull of acquiring additional things, make order out of chaos by getting a handle on clutter, and create an organizational system that reduces stress and anxiety. Dr. Zasio also shares some of the most serious cases of hoarding that she’s encountered, and explains how we can learn from these extreme examples - no matter where we are on the hoarding continuum.

In The Upside of Your Dark Side, two pioneering researchers in the field of psychology show that while mindfulness, kindness, and positivity can take us far, they cannot take us all the way. Sometimes, they can even hold us back. Emotions like anger, anxiety, or doubt might be uncomfortable, but it turns out that they are also incredibly useful.

Words on the Move: Why English Won't - and Can't - Sit Still (Like, Literally)

Words on the Move opens our eyes to the surprising backstories to the words and expressions we use every day. Did you know that silly once meant "blessed"? Or that ought was the original past tense of owe? Or that the suffix -ly in adverbs is actually a remnant of the word like? And have you ever wondered why some people from New Orleans sound as if they come from Brooklyn?

American Philosophy: A Love Story

In American Philosophy, John Kaag - a disillusioned philosopher at sea in his marriage and career - stumbles upon a treasure trove of rare books on an old estate in the hinterlands of New Hampshire that once belonged to the Harvard philosopher William Ernest Hocking. The library includes notes from Whitman, inscriptions from Frost, and first editions of Hobbes, Descartes, and Kant. As he begins to catalog and preserve these priceless books, Kaag rediscovers the very tenets of American philosophy.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

Most people want to avoid thinking about death, but Caitlin Doughty - a 20-something with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre - took a job at a crematory, turning morbid curiosity into her life’s work. With an original voice that combines fearless curiosity and mordant wit, Caitlin tells an unusual coming-of-age story full of bizarre encounters, gallows humor, and vivid characters (both living and very dead).

Spaceman: An Astronaut's Unlikely Journey to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to find yourself strapped to a giant rocket that's about to go from zero to 17,500 miles per hour? Or to look back on Earth from outer space and see the surprisingly precise line between day and night? Or to stand in front of the Hubble Space Telescope, wondering if the emergency repair you're about to make will inadvertently ruin humankind's chance to unlock the universe's secrets? Mike Massimino has been there, and in Spaceman he puts you inside the suit.

English Grammar Boot Camp

Grammar! For many of us, the word triggers memories of finger-wagging schoolteachers, and of wrestling with the ambiguous and complicated rules of using formal language. But what is grammar? In fact, it's the integral basis of how we speak and write. As such, a refined awareness of grammar opens a world of possibilities for both your pleasure in the English language and your skill in using it, in both speech and the written word.

The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America

In the years between World War II and the emergence of television as a mass medium, American popular culture as we know it was first created in the bold, pulpy pages of comic books. The Ten-Cent Plague explores this cultural emergence and its fierce backlash while challenging common notions of the divide between "high" and "low" art.

The Unknown Universe: A New Exploration of Time, Space and Cosmology

On March 21, 2013, the European Space Agency released a map of the afterglow of the big bang. Taking in 440 sextillion kilometers of space and 13.8 billion years of time, it is physically impossible to make a better map: We will never see the early universe in more detail. On the one hand, such a view is the apotheosis of modern cosmology; on the other, it threatens to undermine almost everything we hold cosmologically sacrosanct.

The Secrets of Story: Innovative Tools for Perfecting Your Fiction and Captivating Readers

The Secrets of Story is a revolutionary and comprehensive writing guide for the 21st century, focused on clever ways to get an audience to fully identify with an all-too-human hero. Authors will learn to how to cut through pop culture noise and win over a jaded modern audience by rediscovering the heart of writing: shaping stories that ring true to our shared understanding of human nature.

American Gods [TV Tie-In]

Locked behind bars for three years, Shadow did his time, quietly waiting for the day when he could return to Eagle Point, Indiana. A man no longer scared of what tomorrow might bring, all he wanted was to be with Laura, the wife he deeply loved, and start a new life. But just days before his release, Laura and Shadow's best friend are killed in an accident. With his life in pieces and nothing to keep him tethered, Shadow accepts a job from a beguiling stranger he meets on the way home, an enigmatic man who calls himself Mr. Wednesday.

Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book: The Mowgli Stories

Audie Award, Excellence in Production; Audie Award, Audio Drama, 2016. The magical storytelling and unforgettable characters in Ben Doyle and Richard Kurti's audio adaptation of this children's classic have been brought to life by many well-known voices from British film, TV, radio and comedy.

Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street's Great Foreclosure Fraud

In the depths of the Great Recession, a cancer nurse, a car dealership worker, and an insurance fraud specialist helped uncover the largest consumer crime in American history - a scandal that implicated dozens of major executives on Wall Street. They called it foreclosure fraud: Millions of families were kicked out of their homes based on false evidence by mortgage companies that had no legal right to foreclose.

Get Well Soon: History’s Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them

In 1518, in a small town in Alsace, Frau Troffea began dancing and didn't stop. She danced until she was carried away six days later, and soon 34 more villagers joined her. Then more. In a month more than 400 people had been stricken by the mysterious dancing plague. In late-19th-century England an eccentric gentleman founded the No Nose Club in his gracious townhome - a social club for those who had lost their noses, and other body parts, to the plague of syphilis for which there was then no cure.

Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America

In 1972, when she was seven, Firoozeh Dumas and her family moved from Iran to Southern California, arriving with no firsthand knowledge of this country beyond her father's glowing memories of his graduate school years here.

The Horologicon: A Day's Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language

The Horologicon (or book of hours) contains the most extraordinary words in the English language, arranged according to what hour of the day you might need them. From Mark Forsyth, the author of the number-one international best seller The Etymologicon comes an audiobook of weird words for familiar situations. From ante-jentacular to snudge by way of quafftide and wamblecropt, at last you can say, with utter accuracy, exactly what you mean.

The world moves fast, but that doesn't mean we have to. In this best-selling mindfulness guide - it has sold more than three million copies in Korea, where it was a number-one best-seller for 41 weeks and received multiple best book of the year awards - Haemin Sunim (which means "spontaneous wisdom"), a renowned Buddhist meditation teacher born in Korea and educated in the United States, illuminates a path to inner peace and balance amid the overwhelming demands of everyday life.

Publisher's Summary

Nearly everyone swears - whether it's over a few too many drinks, in reaction to a stubbed toe, or in flagrante delicto. And yet, we sit idly by as words are banned from television and censored in books. We insist that people excise profanity from their vocabularies, and we punish children for yelling the very same dirty words that we'll mutter in relief seconds after they fall asleep. Swearing, it seems, is an intimate part of us that we have decided to selectively deny.

That's a damn shame.

Swearing is useful. It can be funny, cathartic, or emotionally arousing. As linguist and cognitive scientist Benjamin K. Bergen shows us, it also opens a new window onto how our brains process language and why languages vary around the world and over time.

In this groundbreaking yet ebullient romp through the linguistic muck, Bergen answers intriguing questions: How can patients left otherwise speechless after a stroke still shout "Goddamn!" when they get upset? When did a cock grow to be more than merely a rooster? Why is crap vulgar when poo is just childish? Do slurs make you treat people differently? Why is the first word that Samoan children say not mommy but eat shit? And why do we extend a middle finger to flip someone the bird?

Smart as hell and funny as f--k, What the F is mandatory listening for anyone who wants to know how and why we swear.

What the Critics Say

"A lively study with the potential to offend just about anyone.... From a linguistic and sociological viewpoint, the book is illuminating, even playful...an entertaining...look at an essential component of language and society." (Publishers Weekly)

Warning, if you're sensitive about profane word use, this probably will be a hard one to handle.But I would expect people to get that from the subject matter.

Beyond that warning, if you like words and language, this will be well worthing the listen. The reader does a great job and the book ends up being a much more scholarly approach to the topic than I would have guessed.

Quick! Who here hasn't come across a foreign language and asked, "Yeah, but what are the baaad words?" Well, okay; maybe that's just me...From the get go, you're immersed in the world of slurs, and taboo words. At first you feel like a frog dumped in a pot of boiling water, but as you get through the text, the water becomes oddly just fine.After all, this is more than just a book of lists (tho' there are plenty that'll make your jaw drop). It's a fascinating world of cultures, linguistics, religion, and more.What's most interesting through it all, are the various tests scientists use to analyze and evaluate words/phrases/concepts that I can't list, or Audible will flag my review (and I get the whole "pending approval" thing far too often; I'm a cherub! What are they talking about?!?). You'll listen to studies about brain hemispheres and mouth lateralizations, power and disempowerment, even studies on pain tolerance.If you can handle the liberal use of questionable (or flat-out extreme) words, this book is for you. Filled with cheeky good-humor, it's a delightful romp into what used to be extreme but is now tame, what is now tame but could be worse.Quick! When is a finger just a finger?When you're trying to say "brothers" in Japanese Sign Language... get your mind out of the gutter :)

I read because I enjoy learning. A well written book is intellectually stimulaing, thought and conversation provoking. It's not often its actually fun and funny. The fact it's read by the author adds the dimension hearing his passion and his dry sense of humor made it so enjoyable it became a weekend binge listen. The conversations it started with friends led them to download it the next day. Learning starts immediately and does not stop, nor do you want it to. The chapter on grammar, yes grammar, is laugh out loud funny. You can't help but say "I never realized that! But holy c#%p! he's right!" Best book in a while, started to relisten immediately, its that fun and informative.

...you could write this much about swearing? This is a surprisingly comprehensive and interesting book. The narration was also very good. I enjoyed it. It's not fluff though. If you are not academically inclined or interested in linguistics, this may not be the book for you.

I believe in swearing. I especially believe in creative swearing. But like any creative endeavour it helps to know the roots and science of a well-honed craft.

Benjamin Bergen provides that in dirty spades in an encyclopedic look at the world of swearing and, unlike the cover, there's no modifying the words used so it's not a book for people whose strongest oath is "jeepers".

The book does literally look at the world of foul language, looking into what's common and unique among world cultures for what constitutes a bad word, including what it references (anatomy, activity, excrement, etc.) and the impact of how the word is formed. It also seeks to answer questions and myths around bad language. Why are so many English words kept to four letters? Are hard consonants essential? There are scientific studies, including case studies of stroke victims who lose the ability to say anything but swear words. (Does that mean they're stored in a difference part of the brain or they just are embedded more deeply?) Why does Japan claim no swear words? How do we decide to say "poop" or "peepee" with children but other words describing the same things are considered obscene?

Beyond the spoken word Bergen also talks about hand and upper body gestures in different countries, some of which seem obscure to we in the US, and places where you should not be giving the peace sign or thumbs up.

It's exhaustive and nearly exhausting but Bergen keeps things moving with new topics and insights. For a book that covers everything from psychology to linguistics/etymology to sociology to neurology the book is fresh and interesting with thorough research. It's not a book that will change your life in any way but it's a good book with interesting angles on a subject we may have all wondered about at one time or another.

This book was an interesting, funny and sometimes absurd exploration of profanity. The areas covered ranged from possibly useless to the other end of the spectrum of possibly having profound implications on societal interaction.

I very much enjoyed What the F. A book about profanity how peripheral topics interplay with it (everything from harm in public discourse to the oddities of grammar), the book was a fascinating cross section of all sorts of information that is usually either not discussed or is erroneous common knowledge. I will be sharing this book with others because it is just that great. :)

I very much enjoyed this book. I don't wander away from fiction very often, so when I do and it's worth it, I have to speak up. Granted, if you are, should we say, a bit prudish or easily offended, or simply prefer to stay away from profanity in all forms for whatever reason, this is probably not a book for you. The first few chapters where Bergen compiles long lists of profanity for definition, classification, ranking, etc purposes, it was slightly shocking at first. But, where as if I had been reading a hard copy of this book I might have scanned through them and moved on, listening to the audio version I was forced to sit and listen as Bergen read off each list in its entirety, and before long it really was more funny than anything to be sitting in my car listening to someone read off such long lists of profanity. The later chapters dive into interesting questions- how does something become a swear word? How does our brain reaction and process those words differently? Does our brain process obscene gestures in the same manner as hearing profanity? How do deaf people swear? Do different languages across the globe swear in the same way and find the same things offensive? Does censorship work? Bergen dives into each question in a thoroughly scientific manner, describing in detail the experiments that have he has run to determine these answers and what the findings were. In some cases he explains why there have been no studies done, and in others he dives into the studies published by others, walking the reader through the reference material and the conclusions, and either supporting or debunking the results. Now, this sounds thoroughly boring, but let me assure you it is not. This is a funny, witty, intelligently written book. In almost every chapter Bergen starts by introducing you to the history of the subject at hand, be it spoken language, sign language, the differences between cultures, etc, and I found myself learning about all kinds of new topics before he even brought the discussion around to profanity and how it relates to the subject on hand. Obviously this book is going to have a slightly smaller general audience than books on other topics, but if you can get through the opening chapters, I promise there are gems in here you won't be sorry you missed.